Broken Mirror
by Alekto
Summary: *Chapter 2 up* When a High School student goes missing under strange circumstances, Sheriff Bannerman decides to ask Johnny Smith for his help.
1. Rain

Broken Mirror  
  
By Alekto  
  
I don't own anything to do with 'The Dead Zone'. I'm just borrowing the characters for a while. This is written from Johnny's POV and takes place during the first season. Grateful thanks are due to Jane and Julia for their time and trouble in beta reading this for me. Any mistakes left are all mine.  
  
Overall I'd rate this as PG-13.  
  
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;  
  
And in the lowest deep a lower deep  
  
Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide,  
  
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n.  
  
From 'Paradise Lost', book 4, 1.75-8 by John Milton  
  
Chapter 1  
  
As a child I'd never liked the rain. It had meant I'd had to stay inside when I'd far rather have been running around and playing.  
  
The car crash six years ago had put an end to my running around, playing hockey, anything like that. A car crash and six years locked away from the world in a coma had put an end to so many things, and so many relationships. Friends had moved on or moved away. My fiancée, Sarah, had ended up getting married but not to me. Her husband was the local sheriff, Walt Bannerman, who seemed to be a decent, fair-minded man. Sometimes, at night in the dark when I couldn't help but remember how alone I was, I sometimes wished he wasn't so likeable. It would have been so much easier to hate him.  
  
Everything had changed with my waking up - especially me. I see things now that other people don't see, that I didn't see before the car crash and the coma. Call it what you will: second sight, ESP, precognition, psychometry, or any of a dozen other names, but I ended up gifted or cursed with visions of the future, of the past, of other places, of events that would happen, or events that would with my intervention never happen.  
  
My 'talent' helped my former fiancee's husband catch a murderer. And saved his life. Still, it's not really felt to be entirely respectable for the police to consult a psychic, is it? How many sceptics believe that what I do, what I see, is hardly a step up from auguring the future from the entrails of slaughtered animals ... or even witchcraft?  
  
Nowadays, though, I like the rain: its freshness, the sound it makes beating against the roof, the jewel-like glistening of wet leaves as they catch the light, the way it offers insulation from a sometimes too intrusive outside world.  
  
As a child I'd seen only cause and effect, as children do, and I'd missed out on the ephemeral beauty of a rain storm.  
  
*********  
  
The rain that had started late that night had been more high drama than art. It had beaten down with relentless fury, sluicing down the sides of buildings, creating miniature torrents in gutters and along the roads. Passing cars threw up sheets of water as they cut through the rain soaked streets. The streets, deserted of pedestrians had been abandoned to the elements.  
  
The early evening had been one of the cool, crisp evenings of a summer that was gradually sliding into autumn. The pleasant, balmy heat of a New England summer was a distant memory as the chill Atlantic air offered mute warning of the winter to come. The sky had been clear, the air still, as people had made their way home. The bright chatter and unselfconscious laughter of friends on evenings out, carried far in the night air. Then the clouds had drifted in and the rain had started to fall, washing the dirt and fallen leaves away, and everyone who could, had headed inside out of the downpour.  
  
No one was outside to hear the terrified, gasping sobs that spoke of a despair no rain could ever wash away.  
  
*********  
  
Brrrrrrrng!  
  
My mind hauled itself to unwilling wakefulness, struggling to understand the sound. Sleep befuddled memories surfaced: fire drill? Alarm clock?  
  
Brrrrrrng!  
  
Ah, telephone! That was it! I reached over, groping for the receiver I knew was there - somewhere. My hand nudged against something. It moved. Moments later I heard the crash of the previous night's coffee mug hitting the floor. "Damn!" I couldn't help but mutter.  
  
Brrrrrrng!  
  
The phone was there, somewhere. I was just about awake enough to realise that a phone call while it wasn't even dawn yet was never a good sign. My questing hand wandered over the clock radio, a half-forgotten novel, and then, finally, the phone. I picked it up and thumbed the 'answer' button more by instinct than aim. "Hello?" I said, not bothering to conceal the irritation I knew had to have been apparent in my voice at having been woken up.  
  
"Johnny?" replied the voice on the end of the line, "it's Walt... Bannerman. I've got a... situation I think I could use your help on. It looks like ..well, I don't know exactly, but it's some really odd stuff. We've so far managed to keep it largely out of the papers, but I don't know how much longer we can do that, especially after tonight. Look. I don't want to explain over the phone. I've got a deputy on his way over to you to give you a ride over here - there're some things I'd like you to have a look at, see if you get anything from it or something, I don't know... whatever."  
  
He'd sounded worried, uncertain. That alone was unusual enough to grab my attention. "Sure, Walt, I'll be there." I agreed. I rolled out of bed, mindful as always of my bad leg, and made my way to the kitchen for the cup of coffee that such an early morning demanded.  
  
*********  
  
I'd barely started on the coffee when the doorbell rang announcing the arrival - I presumed - of Walt's deputy. Mug in hand I went to open the door. The deputy was stood there, soaked through from even the short distance from his car to the house. In the dim light from the hall behind me he seemed pale and almost impossibly young. Or maybe that was just me feeling my years.  
  
"Mr Smith?" he asked uncertainly.  
  
"Come in," I beckoned. "I won't be a minute. Have some coffee, deputy ...?"  
  
"Higgins, sir. Jasper Higgins. I... uh...only started here a couple of days back. Moved from Vermont," he added as if he felt the extra detail was somehow required. It was a reflection of how tired I was that I was about to stick out my hand in automatic reply to the introduction before more recently learned instincts halted the movement and I settled with a simple nod.  
  
"John Smith. Good to know you."  
  
Uncomfortable silence descended, and I couldn't help but feel a flash of sympathy for Jasper Higgins' predicament. After all, I wouldn't know what to say for small talk to someone who says they can see visions. I finished the coffee, noting absently that Jasper hadn't touched his, shrugged into my coat and started for the door.  
  
The sort of leery reaction that Jasper had shown to me was something I was going to have to start to get used to, I reflected wryly.  
  
********  
  
The car ride to wherever Walt had called from went unrelieved by conversation. The couple of attempts I made to pass the time elicited minimal response, and in the end I gave up and contented myself with watching the rain bounce off the road.  
  
Just as the first pink grey smudges of dawn were lightening the sky, the car pulled into the driveway of a large, but otherwise unremarkable suburban house. Two other police cars were parked in the drive along with an ambulance. The early hour had deterred all but the most avid onlookers, but there were still a few people around, stood on the street in small clusters or peering out from the warm, dry comfort of their houses for what they could make out through the verdure.  
  
"Hi Johnny," Walt greeted holding an umbrella over both of us as I got out from the car. "Glad you could make it." Walt knew me - he didn't even offer to shake hands.  
  
"Walt," I replied evenly, non-judgementally, as if getting dragged out of bed to consult for the sheriff was nothing more than an everyday occurrence - which, at least for the time being, it wasn't. Then I noticed his out of character discomposure, and resolved to continue in a more charitable vein. "What do you need me to do?"  
  
He led the way towards the house, adjusting his pace to mine. "I got the call a couple of hours ago. Lynn Carpenter, high school senior, on the way home from an evening out with her friends. They dropped her off just down the road, less than a hundred yards from her front door. Between there and here, she went missing. We've searched the local area. There's been no sign of her. Based on what we've found in the house, we think she's been abducted."  
  
"Any contact with the kidnappers? Any sort of ransom demand?" I asked. Walt had said there was something weird going on. An abduction might not have been exactly routine, but it was not so out of the ordinary to have so jolted Walt's usual equanimity.  
  
"No, nothing like that," he answered. "Come on. I'll show you what we have got. Perhaps you can make sense of it, 'cause we sure as hell can't."  
  
He didn't elaborate, and I contented myself with following him as he led me into the house. As we walked through to the back of the house, I saw a couple, presumably Lynn's parents, clinging on to each other as they sat on a sofa, offering the other what support they could in the face of the unknown. They returned my gaze with a mixture of hope and disbelief. "William and Mary Carpenter," explained Walt in passing. "Mr Carpenter says he heard a noise downstairs at about three a.m. He thought it might have been their daughter returning late - she'd apparently been told to be home by two a.m. He went downstairs to confront her about it, but instead he found this," he finished, pushing open the door to the conservatory.  
  
We stopped in the doorway, just looking at the room. All the plants in the room had been cut down at the stem and pushed to the sides of the room out of the way. Painted red figures had been daubed onto the walls, life size, anthropomorphic. Another figure had been painted spread-eagled on the floor. Upon it were draped skirt, top, shoes, jewellery, and resting on the figure's head, a hank of hair. A coat was folded neatly on the floor at one side.  
  
"Hers?" I asked.  
  
"All of it," Walt confirmed. "Everything she was wearing when she went out, even down to underwear. We haven't checked DNA yet, but the parents have confirmed that the hair's her colour as well. I called the FBI. I'm expecting them here in a couple of hours. Standard procedure, especially for something this weird."  
  
I nodded. Weird was right. I looked at the figures painted on the walls. All different, or were they just different representations of the same image? And why the plants? Was it just to make room for the paintings on the walls or was there some other purpose?  
  
I glanced back to Walt. "You know I have to touch something," I mentioned, mindful of disturbing any evidence in the room.  
  
"Hmh? Oh, yeah," he replied. "For this one, though, we'll have to wait on the Feds. They'll probably want their forensic people to go over it first."  
  
"*This* one?" I queried. "There've been others like this?"  
  
"Yes. No, well not kidnappings. Break-ins, vandalism, that sort of thing, but there've been figures painted at each scene that looked the same as these. No one got hurt, nothing's even been stolen so far as we can find. The most recent we found was yesterday. Forensics has been over it already. Do you want to take a look?"  
  
It was as much a request as a question, and I thought again of the parents not knowing what had happened to their little girl. "Sure," I agreed. "Let's go."  
  
We didn't have to drive far from the house. Walt was soon pulling in to an empty car park on a small industrial park. "We had a call to a break-in yesterday at Meridian Inc., a software firm located here," he explained. "Whomever it was managed to bypass security and get in without setting off any of the alarms. A competent job but not extraordinary: they managed to trigger an alarm on their way out and their security firm routed the call to us automatically. We found that their conference suite had been 'redecorated', but nothing was missing despite their being thousands of dollars worth of computer gear there for the taking. The scene's pretty much as it was when we found it. The clean up crew are only due later this morning."  
  
I nodded, only half listening to Walt's commentary as the building's night watchman let us in and pointed us towards Meridian's offices. At the door of the conference room Walt paused and gestured for me to go first. I gripped the door handle warily. Nothing. I pushed the door open and looked into the room beyond. It was large and bright, even in the early dawn light. Around the walls decorative ferns and palms in pots had been cut down, and the pristine white of the walls broken up by man size figures painted in dark red.  
  
I walked up to the nearest painted figure and slowly lifted my hand. I paused for a moment, taking the time to steel myself for what was to come. Experiencing visions wasn't... comfortable. It was like a roller-coaster ride into the future, into the past, into another person's mind.  
  
I reached out and touched the figure...  
  
To be continued... 


	2. Eyes

Broken Mirror  
  
By Alekto  
  
Chapter 2  
  
I reached out and touched the figure...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
It was night.  
  
The room was dark, but should have been darker. The sky was clear, the moon overhead nearly full, framed in the wide skylight.  
  
I pulled my hand away from the wall. It was slick, black stained, with fine rivulets of dark liquid dribbling between my fingers, down the back of my hand, down my wrist and forearm in a disturbingly sensual liquid caress.  
Blood looked black in the dark, I knew.  
  
I looked at the figure on the wall, the figure *I* had just painted. As if no more than a passenger in my own body I reached out and started to dab in crude features: right eye, left eye, then paused. It was enough. The eyes were important. Nothing else was relevant.  
  
The figure needed to see. It didn't need to speak or hear. It needed to see what he ... I ... *he* was doing. It needed to see, to approve what was being done.  
  
It had needed eyes.  
  
I looked up again at the moon: another eye to watch what was going to happen.  
  
That made sense.  
  
It was no more than was appropriate.  
  
I reached out and deftly blocked in the outline of the figure's head, hiding the eyes but it didn't matter. I knew they were still there, and that was the important thing. It could still see. Seeing was important. No one else could see things as clearly as I ... *he* did. They would need to be shown.  
  
The room darkened. I looked up to see a cloud drifting across the moon: the eye was closed.  
  
I looked at the figures on the walls, faded to be barely visible, black on black.  
  
It was enough for now.  
  
I could wait.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
I looked at my hand where I'd just let go of the wall. I was reeling, gasping for breath and for a vertiginous moment I couldn't work out where the blood - no, paint - that my hand had been covered with had gone.  
  
"What did you see? John?"  
  
John? John. Yes, that was it. That was me. Walt's reasonable, concerned, questioning voice brought me back from the blood and the night. And the eyes. I took a deep breath, and then with Walt's steady arm guiding me, I managed a couple of steps backward to sit on one of the chairs in the conference room.  
  
"I... I'm not sure," I finally managed to get out. I could still see the eyes in my mind, staring at me, accusatory, unforgiving, needy. "The moon," I went on. "The moon's important. It watches him. He needs it watching him."  
  
Walt snorted. "Another lunatic," he complained wryly. "Perfect!" 'Lunatic', I thought, from Luna: madness caused by the moon. People had always blamed the moon for aberrant behaviour. I wondered if Walt was aware of the aptness of his comment. Probably: Walt was no fool. "Anything else?" he added hopefully.  
  
I shook my head wearily, unable to get rid of the afterimage of all those watching eyes, then looked up to see Walt's concerned gaze. "He sees things ... differently from us. I don't know exactly what or how. Everything was just .. off centre, kind of. Skewed. I can't really explain it any more clearly," I finished, knowing as I did that I couldn't have been making much sense.  
  
Walt surveyed the room with its bizarre artwork, saying nothing, a thoughtful expression on his face. The moment was broken by the discreet 'chirrup' of a cell phone that sent both of us reaching for pockets in the search for whose was ringing. Walt found his phone and flicked it open. "Bannerman. Okay, tell them I'm on my way back... Yes, he's with me... Sure."  
  
"Problem?" I asked once he'd hung up.  
  
"Feds have arrived at the Carpenter place," he said. "And as to whether it's a problem... I guess I'll soon find out. You need anything else here?"  
  
I looked around at the painted figures: the ghostly images painted in the moonlight no more than mundane crudely done daubs seen in the unforgiving daylight. "No, I'm done here."  
  
*********  
  
We got back to the Carpenter house less than a half hour later. The daylight hadn't only brought the Feds. The media had caught wind of the story, and a missing -probably kidnapped- teenager was good copy. The Feds had arrived in force while we'd been gone: nearly half a dozen more vehicles, mostly dark coloured SUV's, were gathered around the house. A number of people with 'FBI' emblazoned jackets were walking around or engaged in earnest discussions that seemed of great import - discussions about exactly what, I couldn't fathom, but whatever it was, it lent them a certain gravitas that fitted well with their image.  
  
Deputy Jasper Higgins met us at the bottom of the driveway as Walt and I got out of the car, and led us to a woman of early middle age, clad in the stereotypical FBI garb of dark suit and sunglasses. She was dark complexioned - Italian or Mexican, perhaps, if I was asked to guess, and clearly not so concerned about appearance that she had bothered to have the grey streaks in her hair recoloured.  
  
"Sheriff," began Jasper. "This here's Special Agent Farrell of the FBI. Agent Farrell. This is Sheriff Bannerman, and, uh, John Smith," he finished, as if embarrassed at how my name might have sounded like a poorly thought out alias to the visiting Fed.  
  
"What's your role in this investigation, Mr. Smith?" she asked without preamble and without acknowledging Walt's hand, outstretched in greeting.  
  
"I asked John to consult for us," answered Walt uncomfortably as he dropped his arm back to his side. It wasn't generally viewed as seemly for cops to ask for the help of psychics or clairvoyants. It tended to imply that they weren't capable of solving crimes on their own, without having to resort to people widely seen as charlatans and opportunists.  
  
"In what capacity?" Agent Farrell enquired pointedly, the curtness of her speech suited perfectly by the dry New England accent.  
  
There was an uncomfortable pause from Walt as, I guessed, he was trying to work out in his mind how best to explain to the visiting Fed as to why he had decided to ask for the help of someone who claimed to be able to see visions. Such tact seemed of less concern to Deputy Higgins as he took Walt's silence as his cue to explain. "John Smith's supposed to be a psychic, ma'am."  
  
I'd expected at the very least politely veiled disbelief, but for all the expression I could see on Agent Farrell's face, Deputy Higgins explanation might as well have been a comment on the weather. I had the vague sense that she was studying me from behind the sunglasses, but I couldn't be sure. I made a mental note never to play poker with the woman. She could have given a cigar store Indian lessons in inscrutability.  
  
"Deputy Higgins," she said after a few seconds. "I'd appreciate it if you could get the news crews a bit further back. Thank you."  
  
"Yes ma'am," he replied briskly, and left to do as she had asked: a polite dismissal.  
  
"Sheriff Bannerman, if you would be so kind as to brief me on what you've found so far," she began, and then turned to me. "Mr. Smith, if you would excuse us..." Another polite dismissal. Were I to guess, I'd have said that Agent Farrell didn't think much of the locals, Sheriff's office or otherwise.  
  
I caught a brief apologetic glance from Walt has he followed Agent Farrell back into the Carpenter house. All around everyone else had jobs to do. I felt like a standing stone in an ocean of industry as the various forces of law enforcement swept around me. I was getting uncomfortable. There were too many people here, and, if Agent Farrell's attitude was anything to go by, the Feds didn't seem to want my help. I didn't want to have to ask Deputy Higgins for a ride home, so I pulled out my cell phone and called a cab. If Walt wanted to talk to me later, he knew where to find me.  
  
*********  
  
The day passed uneventfully. The kidnapping had got a lot of time on the local news, and even warranted a brief mention on one of the networks, but no details were given out about the figures painted on the walls. I wondered what kind of flack Walt was getting from the Feds about bringing a civilian to the scene. From what I'd heard about the FBI, they were big on procedure, and if Agent Farrell was anything to go by, psychics didn't feature in the approved procedure.  
  
Walt came by unannounced after dinner. He looked tired and grim faced. Wordlessly he accepted the beer I handed to him, and sat down on the couch. In the background, a television news anchor was going over the scanty details of the kidnapping that the media had been given. I must have seen the same short interview with Walt talking to Dana Bright repeated more than half a dozen times. No new information had come to light since then, just the usual comments about police and FBI following down several unspecified leads, all related with a palpably fake optimism. The same performance repeated for most of the day in half hourly 'updates'.  
  
Walt just sat there, looking at the television without seeing it. "Feds dig up anything?" I asked once it seemed that Walt wasn't going to open conversation unprompted.  
  
He started at my words, as if his thoughts had been elsewhere. I wondered why he was here instead of talking to Sarah, then it occurred to me: this was work, and Walt didn't like to take his work home. "They're still going over stuff, sending it back to the lab at Quantico for analysis. Farrell said we should get the results back sometime tomorrow," he added wearily.  
  
"Farrell? Doesn't she have a first name?" I joked. Walt's native courtesy wouldn't normally allow him to refer to a woman in such brusque terms. I guessed that he hadn't warmed to her over the day.  
  
He snorted in reply. "Not that I heard her use. Even the other Feds called her 'Agent Farrell' or 'ma'am'. I guess she doesn't like informality."  
  
"I guess not," I shrugged. He didn't reply, just idly picked up the television remote and started toggling disinterestedly between stations, eventually settling on a home improvement show fronted by a young woman of unlikely enthusiasm and less skill. The show should have been funny, but wasn't.  
  
The show's end credits rolled. Walt tipped back the last of his beer, got up and dropped the empty in the trash. He turned back towards me. "John, I've worked with the Feds in the past more than once. I know there's a certain amount of attitude between local and federal law enforcement, however much we're supposed to co-operate fully with each other. Farrell virtually threw my people out of the house. About the only thing she asked me to do was direct traffic and talk to the media, and that's not what I'd describe as co-operating with the Sheriff's office." The irritation in Walt's voice was plain to hear.  
  
"I thought the Feds would normally want to be the contact point for the media once they took over a case," I put forward cautiously, unsure of my ground in what was for him such an emotive subject.  
  
"Yeah, so did I," said Walt. "That's what happened when we've dealt with the FBI in the past, anyway."  
  
"Probably for the best," I began, ignoring Walt's surprised glance at my words. "I mean, can you imagine Agent Farrell giving an interview? She really doesn't strike me as the kind of person who you'd want to believe. I might have to check with Dana, but I don't think monosyllabic goes down too well on camera!" I had a mental image of Agent Farrell: dark suit, sunglasses, stony faced, offering terse non-committal responses to reporters who were looking for reassurance from the FBI for their viewers: in other words, the interview from hell.  
  
An unwilling smile quirked Walt's mouth. I guessed he had to have had much the same image in mind. "I might not like her," he went on, "but she seems competent enough, and if by her being here we get Lynn Carpenter back, then who cares."  
  
I echoed his sentiment by breaking out two more cans of beer.  
  
*********  
  
A couple of days went by with no new developments on the kidnapping. Walt said that the FBI had rigged the phone at the Carpenter house to trace any incoming calls in case any might be from the kidnapper. The day after the kidnapping, Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter had gone on television to make a tearful appeal for their daughter's return, and some of the local papers had even got together to offer a reward.  
  
I could have told them it was pointless: he wouldn't call. The man who had painted the figures on the wall wasn't interested in ransom money. For whatever reason he'd wanted Lynn Carpenter herself, and now he had her, he wasn't going to giver her back no matter how much money was offered.  
  
Agent Farrell had agreed, with apparent reluctance, to keep the Sheriff's office in the loop as far as the investigation was concerned; and Walt, breaking however many regulations in the process, kept me up to date with what was laughingly referred to as 'progress'. The kidnapper might have been a lunatic, according to Walt anyway, but when the lab results came back, everyone involved was forced to admit that he had at least a working knowledge of forensics. Wherever he'd acquired it, it was enough for him to have left next to nothing at the scene for the FBI's scientists to work with.  
  
*********  
  
It was the evening three days after the kidnapping. Outside, the night was clear and still. I'd been watching television on my own, resting my leg, which had been aching much of the day, reflecting on how much I'd lost being in a coma for six years. It was the evenings alone that I couldn't help but think of the times that Sarah and I had lain curled up on that same couch in front of the fire.  
  
My lapse into self-pity was brought abruptly to a halt by a knock at the door. I got up, flexed my leg a couple of times to get the circulation going again, and walked over to open the door. Walt was standing in the porch, pale and grim faced. With him were two of the Feds, looking oddly undressed without their sunglasses. I had to remind myself that even they wouldn't wear sunglasses at night.  
  
"Agent Farrell asked me to come over and pick you up," Walt said by way of explanation, ignoring the confusion that had to have shown on my face. "We've found Lynn Carpenter."  
  
To be continued... 


End file.
